Charlie Hebdo: French Question 12 On Involvement in Attack

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Jan. 17, 2015 / 12:43 PM GMT / Updated Jan. 17, 2015 / 12:44 PM GMT

PARIS — Twelve suspects were being questioned about their possible involvement in the attacks that have terrified much of France and plunged Western Europe into a state of high alert, French officials said on Saturday. Security officers were grilling the eight men and four women to see if they had helped and provided logistics to the terrorists behind the attacks on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket, a spokesman for the Paris prosecutor’s office told NBC News.

Meanwhile, the mayor of one the towns near Paris said he had requested an unmarked grave for Chérif Kouachi, one of the Charlie Hebdo gunmen and a former resident. Gennevilliers Mayor Patrice Leclerc said in a post on Facebook that while he had wanted to refuseto bury Chérif Kouachi, the law obliged communities to allow burial in the city of residence. He did not say whether Kouachi had been buried.

On Friday, Belgium ordered its army onto the streets whileraids across Western Europe netted dozens as authorities rushed to prevent attacks by people with links to Islamic extremists. Thirteen people were detained across Belgium in what authorities said was an operation to dismantle a terrorist cell that planned to "kill several policemen in the street and police stations," federal magistrate Eric Van der Sypt told reporters on Friday.

Rob Wainwright, head of the police agency Europol, told The Associated Press that thwarting attacks by returning jihadis had become "extremely difficult" because Europe's estimated 2,500 to 5,000 radicalized Muslim extremists have little command structure and conduct increasingly sophisticated operations.